Deck the house with lots of lights

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A Famous Neighborhood

Dyker Heights is famous for having a whole block of the most spectacular displays in New York. This neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., is the first stop on a one-hour tour of elaborately decorated houses called What's With That Decked Out Christmas House? It was all started more than 20 years ago by one woman who wanted to continue the tradition from her mother. This display features 40 angels and hundreds of yard figurines called blow molds.

Turning Up the Heat

This display in Escondido, Calif., got so big one year that it melted the city power lines three times. The city ended up rewiring the whole street with bigger lines as a result. The owner starts decorating Oct. 1 to place the huge rooftop sign, life-size snowmen on the lawn and elaborate window displays, each complete with animated characters. He even blocks out the sun on the inside of the house to make the windows show up better.

Psychedelic Lights

A self-described technology nerd dubbed the "Crazy Light Lady," the owner of this house in Allen, Texas, is absolutely obsessed with Christmas. She spends hundreds of hours wiring circuit boards to create a technologically sophisticated lighting display. All the lights are extremely low-voltage LEDs, and the whole enormous display draws about the same amount of electricity as one hair dryer. To top it off, she has everything wired through a computer that creates a psychedelic light show set to music.

Decked Out for the Holidays

We found an entire neighborhood that gets decked out for Christmas. Candy Cane Lane in Los Angeles is actually about eight square blocks, and yes, everyone is expected to decorate. Here's just one of the houses Disney displays.